It is just great to see death metal bands taking their music seriously. Any bunch of deathcore kids who wanna have fun can learn to play brutal and fast after some years of listening to Relapse bands and practicing; but the bands that ultimately stand out from the pack are the ones which have something more worthwhile, the ones with members who live and breathe real Death Metal all their lives. I'm talking about bands that can creep into your subconscious mind and make a nasty home in it. And Deus Otiosus is such a band.
There is a big difference between just banging out some solid DM tunes with the right ingredients (death growls, heavy riffs, double bass drums etc), and making a piece of real unearthly, sick, and disgustingly dark music. While Deus Otisius do have all the right ingredients for sure, they fall into the latter category of true deathsters, and have offered the world a true old school DM masterpiece.
Their brand of DM goes way back to the roots of old school death metal. That means really brutal, with a thick wall of sound created by the the solid guitar riffage, 100% DM vocals and a crazy drummer blasting out necro beats in the background. What I mean by 'necro' is that the beats are not hyper fast, more like an exchange of mid tempo/fast parts, but coupled with a punishing and selective use of the double bass. If you want references of what this albums sounds, then I'd have to drop in some names like early Death, Apshyx, Sinister, Bolt Thrower, maybe even rocking stuff like Entombed and Dismember. At times, these guys seem to black/thrash it a little bit in the old school style like Possessed, Celtic Frost etc. And that, my friends, is where the real inferno is at.
While Deus Otisius plays straight out DM, they manage to create a ghastly atmosphere without the use of long interludes, keyboards, or any other extras. They manage to collectively use their instruments, lyrics and layout in such a way as to create a real deathly atmosphere that drives your mind into hellish images, cold cemetaries and ghouls running amuck. Some of the riffs have an epic feel to to them and create a war/battlefield atmposhere, hence the Bolt Thrower influence I mentioned earlier. These are some of the parts that really start growing on you after you give this record a few listens.
To sum it up, I'll leave you with a line that the band itself used in order to promote the album: "twisted death metal with the reek of the damned". This is what it is!
PROS: Total old school feel, great vox, some truly epic guitar riffs, nice production, high level of brutality.
CONS: None, but strictly for DM fans
LOWDOWN: A true DM album for those who worship the roots of this music.
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